Devonshire Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Devonshire Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England) -- Biography; Devon (England) -- History
After that he was taken to Gomera, where the deputy-governor lived, and
by means of an interpreter Wyatt was able to explain to him that he
was in great pain and had a ball in his shoulder. The deputy-governor
sent for a barber, who with a razor cut across the wound this way and
that till he saw the ball, which he hooked out with a bent nail. The
ball had gone eight inches through the fleshy part of the shoulder
and was lodged against the bone. From Gomera Wyatt was sent by boat
to Teneriffe to the head governor, who received and examined him. The
governor’s mother took compassion on him, saw that he was well fed, and
sent a proper surgeon to dress his wounds, and made him a present of
three shirts and two handkerchiefs to make into a sling for his arm.
Next day the kind old lady sent him a pair of silk stockings, a hat, a
black silk waistcoat, and a dollar in money.
Wyatt was now transferred to the castle at Laguna, above Santa Cruz,
where he found five-and-twenty English prisoners, among whom was a
physician, Dr. Ross. It was some time before he was healed of his
wounds, but eventually did recover.
One day a man came to the castle with a drum on his back, and Wyatt
at once asked him to be allowed to beat it. To this he consented, and
Wyatt beat a march. Though not a skilled drummer, his performance
greatly delighted the owner of the drum, and he rushed off to an
acquaintance, a gentleman, to announce that among the English prisoners
was the first drummer in the world.
The gentleman was much excited and sent for him, and was delighted.
After that at every dinner party, entertainment, gathering, Wyatt was
in requisition to rattle the drum, on which occasions he received
little sums of money, which he employed in relieving the needs of his
fellow prisoners.
After he had been twenty-eight days in the castle he was sent for to
Santa Cruz to the general, who had heard that he drummed, and was eager
to hear the performance. This pleased him so well that he asked Wyatt
if he would teach the black boy of a friend of his how to handle the
drum-sticks. Wyatt consented, and thus obtained much liberty, for the
owner of the black boy, whom he called Don Mathias Caster, took him
into his own house. As instructing the boy did not occupy the whole
of Wyatt’s time, he resolved on turning his knowledge of dyeing to
advantage. The Spanish love black; and as the gentleman told him, black
cloaks and dresses in the sun and with the dust soon turned rusty. He
gave him an old kettle and lent him an outhouse, and Wyatt converted
the latter into a dye-house and re-dyed the cloth garments of most of
the gentlemen of Santa Cruz, and received from each a remuneration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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